After 52 years of fighting, Columbia finally signs ceasefire with rebel group FARC

Patricia, a member of the 51st Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), poses for a picture at a camp in Cordillera Oriental, Colombia, August 16, 2016. Picture taken August 16, 2016

A permanent cease-fire has taken effect in Colombia, a major step in bringing an end to 52 years of bloody combat between the government and the country's biggest rebel group.

The commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announced on Sunday that his fighters would cease hostilities beginning at 12.01am on Monday. as a result of the peace deal reached by the two sides during the week.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos made a similar announcement on Friday, saying the military would halt attacks on the FARC beginning on Monday.

FARC leader Rodrigo Londono, also known as Timochenko, made his announcement in Havana, Cuba, where rebel and government negotiators talked for four years to reach the deal on ending one of the world's longest-running conflicts.

"Never again will parents be burying their sons and daughters killed in the war," he said. "All rivalries and grudges will remain in the past."

Colombia is expected to hold a national referendum on October 2 to give voters the chance to approve the accord, which would end political violence that has claimed more than 220,000 lives and driven more than five million people from their homes over five decades.

Commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, Rodrigo Londono, better known as Timochenko or Timoleon Jimenez talks to the press, accompanied by Ivan Marquez, right, chief negotiator of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and Pablo Catatumbo, left, chief of the FARC's western bloc, in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, August 28, 2016

Polls say most Colombians loathe the rebel group but are likely to endorse the deal anyway.

Top FARC commanders are planning to gather one final time in mid-September to ratify the deal.

Under the 297-page accord, FARC guerrillas are supposed to turn over their weapons within six months after the deal is formally signed. In return, the FARC's still unnamed future political movement will be given a minimum 10 congressional seats - five in the lower house, five in the Senate - for two legislative periods.

In addition, 16 lower house seats will be created for grassroots activists in rural areas traditionally neglected by the state and in which existing political parties will be banned from running candidates.

In this Aug 24, 2016 photo, people celebrate in a park as they listen to the announcement from Havana, Cuba, that delegates of Colombia's government and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia reached a peace accord to end their half-century civil war, in Bogota, Colombia

But critics of the peace process say that will further boost the rebels' post-conflict political power.

After 2026, both arrangements would end and the former rebels would have to demonstrate their political strength at the ballot box.

Not all hostilities are ending under the deal with the FARC. The much-smaller National Liberation Army remains active in Colombia, although it is pursuing its own peace deal with the government.